Puck Tells Quinn It's All His Fault - Carole & Burt Blame Themselves
by luvtheheaven
Summary: Quinn's POV. Puck, Burt, and Carole are at the hospital but they got there too late and Finn is, sadly, gone. The rest of the world is asleep and Carole wants to wait till morning to shatter people's worlds. Puck can't wait with this alone & decides to call Quinn. Part 2 of my "To Have Loved and Lost" series of oneshots about Finn's death. Please check out installments #1 & #3 too!


_**Author's Note 1: **__This is the second oneshot in a connected series about Finn's death that I've been writing called "To Have Loved and Lost". Each oneshot can be read on its own, and you should be able to understand everything fine if you only want to read the oneshot and not the whole seires, but I'd highly recommend you give the other installments in my series a chance. The first one had Finn still alive… and featured Puck there in the final moments of Finn's life. This one picks up where that one left off, with Puck calling Quinn about what happened. It's a few hours later._

* * *

"_There's no problem so awful that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse." _

_-Bill Watterson_

_**Quinn's POV:**_

"Hey, wake up. Your cell phone's ringing."

Quinn squinted her eyes open, taking in the pitch black darkness which was punctuated only by one small rectangular block of light.

"What?" Quinn asked, groggily, having slept through who knows how many rings. She needed a moment in order to understand what was happening.

Danielle repeated herself. "Your… cell phone?" As she said it, the ringing stopped. Quinn had taken too long to acclimate herself to her surroundings.

"Oh, right. I'm so sorry. I guess I should've turned that off," Quinn apologized. She pushed her covers off of her body and got out of bed, crossing the dorm room to get to the thing which had clearly awoken her roommate. She checked to see who the 'missed call' was from.

"Puck?" she muttered, confused. They had said a brief 'hello' about a month-and-a-half prior at the Valentine's Day wedding, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd _really_ talked to Puck. Quinn turned to look at her roommate.

"I'm sorry," Quinn said. "You can go back to bed now. I'll call this guy back in the hallway."

Danielle nodded as Quinn grabbed her keys, not wanting to lock herself out of the room.

Maybe Puck had drunk-dialed her? It was four in the morning, but it was a _Saturday_ morning. Maybe Puck had just not gone to bed yet on a Friday night. She dialed him back, and the put the phone to her ear. There was barely one ring before he answered.

"Quinn?" Puck asked. He sounded… upset. Like maybe he had been crying?

"Yeah, I'm here. What's… going on?" She'd been planning on yelling at him for bothering her at an hour when all normal human beings are fast asleep, but when she heard the way his voice sounded, she decided against it. Puck paused for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and answering.

"Finn's dead," Puck managed to say.

And just like that, her world stopped.

"What?" Quinn breathed, completely in shock.

"Yeah," Puck sorrowfully confirmed. Quinn didn't want to believe she'd heard him right, but then Puck elaborated. "His mom doesn't want to wake anyone up yet, but…"

_Oh gosh,_ Quinn thought as Puck trailed off, seemingly unable to expand on the thought. She had actually lived with Carole for a period of time after her own parents had kicked her out. Now, she could only picture that beautiful woman as a heartbroken mess somewhere, and the mental image was torture.

"What… what happened?" she asked in a whisper. She still hadn't fully comprehended the idea that her first boyfriend, a boy who was still her close friend, was dead. She was too frozen in shock for the truth to properly hit her yet. She needed more information.

"Alcohol poisoning," Puck answered simply.

Quinn didn't know what she was expecting, but it wasn't that.

"Oh my God!" she replied in a shouted whisper. She was still in her dorm hallway; she didn't want to wake up her neighbors, or prevent Danielle from falling back asleep.

"What… um." She was stammering. "How?" she pressed. "What exactly happened?"

"I… I took him to a frat party to celebrate his birthday," Puck began to explain, his voice breaking.

Quinn started to shed her first tear at the thought of it actually being Finn's birthday… and simultaneously the day of his death.

"I was busy with this girl while Finn… Finn…" Puck started choking on his sobs. Quinn listened to him cry for about ten seconds before giving him a way out.

"You know what?" she quietly commented. "I don't need to hear it."

They sat quietly on the phone with each other as Puck's sobs lessened. Eventually, Puck broke the silence.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called. I'm sure I woke you up. His mom was right. He'd still be dead in the morning," he said with a morbid chuckle.

Quinn winced at that last statement. But she understood why he did what he did. He couldn't handle being alone with this crushing news. He needed to tell _someone_. Somehow, it made sense to her that he'd call her of all people. The other people who would be crushed by this news, like Rachel, Kurt… Quinn started to shed more tears as she thought of how this news would affect each of them. Pretty much every former member of the New Directions would be heartbroken… but Puck wasn't as close to most of them. Puck and Quinn shared _Beth_, shared a common past betrayal of Finn… the two of them shared so much.

"It's okay," Quinn reassured him. "I… I'm glad you called," she said, although the words rang hollow. She wasn't _glad_ at all. She… she felt like it was _necessary_, like she shouldn't be _allowed _to be blissfully sleeping when Finn's life had ended.

"You were… you were living with him now, right?" she asked softly, hesitantly, wanting to say something, _anything_, so that they weren't just sitting there in an_ awful_ silence. She thought she remembered seeing some Facebook status update to that effect.

"Yeah, we're roommates… I mean… we _were_," Puck replied, sounding freshly heartbroken with each word. "I don't even… I _can't_ go back there tonight," Puck quietly added.

Quinn wished she could offer him a place to stay, but seeing as she lived on a girls-only floor all the way over in Connecticut, it wasn't really practical.

"You could probably ask Carole if you could spend what's left of the night with her…" Quinn offered.

"Yeah," Puck replied. "Kurt's dad's here too. I'm at the hospital, by the way. The three of us are."

Quinn nodded, taking that in, and then was shaken from her thoughts as some late night partiers were straggling in from the stairwell. The freshman girls were giggling, having trouble keeping quiet despite the hour because they were still drunk. They walked past Quinn, who was seated on the floor by the door of her own dorm room. The girls were completely oblivious to the blonde girl's tears and grief and how a party much like the one they must've just gotten back from had just caused the death of one of the people dearest to her heart. Quinn was a freshman too, but she certainly felt a lot older at a time like this, when life was forcing her to grow up way too fast.

"I really did love Finn," she said in a near-whisper.

"I did too," Puck echoed.

She meant it in every way you could imagine. She'd loved him in a romantic way when they were still a couple who kissed each other passionately and felt fireworks. She also loved him as a person, as a friend, as someone who she'd only ever wanted the best for. She'd wanted him to be happy. She never wanted his life to end when he was still a teenager.

She knew how Puck meant it, too. Puck loved him the way one loves a… best friend. A brother.

"It's all my fault, you know," Puck commented mournfully after a period of time. She could barely hear him as he continued at an even quieter volume. "I should have been hanging out with _him_ and not that girl… I could've stopped him from drinking so many shots… or I could've at least called 911 sooner…"

Quinn listened with bated breath. Part of her took in every word at face value. Puck could've saved Finn's life. Damn it, why didn't he? She wanted to hate him for being a horrible friend. It'd be nice to have a place to direct her rage rather than just at _life _for being unfair… but she couldn't. She couldn't even begin to blame Puck. It was just not in her.

"Puck, I'm sure you did everything you could."

But the boy who used to have a Mohawk started hysterically sobbing at those words. Apparently they did nothing to help comfort him. Quinn was horrified at having caused this outburst.

"That's just it, though!" Puck exclaimed into the phone through his tears. "I didn't do everything I could've. Should've. I really should've done so many different things. If I'd done just one thing differently…"

Quinn anguished over the idea of Puck playing over the scenarios in his mind. She realized Puck must've been the one, ultimately, to be there with Finn's lifeless body and to call the paramedics when it was tragically just too late. She wanted to wrap the guy up in a hug. God, why did she have to be six hundred miles away?

"Puck, listen to me. There's… there's no good that can come out of blaming yourself right now. I know you would've done things differently had you known."

"Thanks," he bitterly acknowledged her. She could tell he didn't really believe her words yet, but she wasn't sure what else she could say.

"I'll take a train back to Lima tomorrow," Quinn simply said. "Or well… today," she corrected, knowing it must be approaching five a.m. now.

"You don't have to-"

"-I want to." Quinn paused. "I need to. Really."

"Alright."

They hung up and Quinn sat on the floor of the hallway for a few more minutes before tiptoeing back into her room, trying not to wake her roommate.

* * *

_**Carole's POV:**_

Somewhere in the back of her mind, the far back of her mind, she could register the feeling of Burt's tears seeping through her shirt to her back as he held her tightly. She was crying so much harder than he was, but it was oddly comforting to know that he was shedding some silent tears too. She didn't need to be alone in her pain. Even Noah was suffering too, which in some ways was making everything worse, of course, as she loved that boy too and hated to see him cry, but there was an odd sense of relief in knowing this overwhelming grief she was feeling was… was sort of shared. That other people loved her son, that his life had been full of love.

She pulled away from her husband, temporarily able to catch her breath and dry her tears, and glanced toward Noah, who seemed to be on the phone. He was seated too far away for them to hear who he was talking to.

"I thought I told him to wait till the sun was up," Carole said with a sigh.

"He's just a kid," Burt commented. "Let him do what do what he needs to do."

Carole saw the truth in that. She had least had her wonderful husband here with her. If Noah needed to wake someone up because of his grief, it was pretty understandable.

Carole looked up at Burt and wondered what he was thinking. He seemed lost in thought, looking off into the distance. This whole thing was bringing up a lot of memories of her Christopher. Maybe Burt was thinking about his wife too, and all that he'd went through when she'd died. She left him alone to his thoughts for a few minutes before finally breaking the silence.

"I feel like such a… _failure_ as a parent," she commented, her voice breaking on every other syllable.

Burt looked at her with so much sympathy in his eyes, she thought it might kill her. Rather than reassure her she wasn't a failure, he informed her that he understood.

"I kind of do too," he said. "I mean, before a kid goes off to college you're supposed to explain to them…" he trailed off, sounding utterly defeated.

"You're supposed to explain to them that too much alcohol in one sitting is dangerous?" Carole finished for him. "I know, gosh, I'm a nurse, I've seen my fair share of alcohol poisoning, but I never thought Finn would…"

"I know." Burt said.

They both started crying again and they held each other.

Eventually Puck walked up to them. "Can I… stay with you guys tonight?" he asked sheepishly. Carole looked into the boy's eyes, which were red from crying, probably not unlike her own.

"Of course," she replied.

The three of them slowly walked out of the hospital together, Burt holding onto the bag containing Finn's clothes and shoes.

It was going to be a really tough night.

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_**Author's Note 2:** Please leave me a review if you read this oneshot, and please add me to your author's alerts if you want to be notified when I post the later installments in this series. Part 3, which is Kurt-centric with appearances by Burt, Blaine (Klaine!), and Santana and mentions of Rachel, has already been posted - check out my profile to find it. It's called "He Was My Brother".  
_


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